Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Priest Tells Horror Story of Abandonment, Rejection and Neglect

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8037

[Virtue Online] 8 Apr 2008--The Rev. Harald Haugan, or Whitey as he is known to his friends, was a priest in The Episcopal Church for nearly 50 years, 20 of those years he spent as the founding rector of All Souls' in Jacksonville, Florida, a church he served with distinction and honor, making it one of the most successful Evangelical Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Florida.

His parish was named after All Souls Langham Place in London where the legendary John R.W. Stott, a pillar of 20th Century evangelical Anglicanism, kept the faith alive even as spiritual darkness descended over the Church of England.

When Whitey retired in 1999, he left behind a thriving congregation, one of the largest in the diocese. He was 67 then. Now he's 76, a survivor of heart and other surgeries, but still, until the first of this year, vigorously involved with three unattached groups doing Bible studies and Communion. (They are now under other jurisdictions and clergy their members refusing to compromise their faith.) As a result of the treatment he received from Bishop Howard and the intimidated leadership in the Diocese of Florida, he has been welcomed to continue his genuine Anglican commitment as a priest with the Anglican Mission in the Americas.

When he saw his name among those officially deposed by the liberal Bishop of Florida, the Rt. Rev John Howard, this week, the pain of it all came back to him with a rush.

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